Programmes

«All a poet can do today is warn»: Wilfred Owen’s words head the score of Britten’s «War Requiem», a work in which quiet grief faces the shrillness of violence. The 1962 work is a timeless warning against war and a stirring celebration of compassion. After Ryan Wigglesworth, Britten’s compatriot and Grafenegg’s Composer in Residence, plants his Composer Tree and his Fanfare heralds the Festival, the Wolkenturm becomes a musical monument of peace.